


Dames and Robots

by Xewleer



Category: Blame!, Detective Fiction - Fandom, Jaspers Silver and the Sky Pirates of Jupiter, Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4590633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xewleer/pseuds/Xewleer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This hard boiled detective doesn't usually take jobs from dames. It gets ugly. Always gets ugly. But this broad isn't asking me to tail a faithless husband, catch a thieving maid or murder some tough. She's asking me to find a cure for becoming a Silicon Soul. Took me a second. But I took the job. We got too many robots in our future-world, and a girl like that? One too many. I grabbed my gun, my coat and my hat. She's given me a name. That's all I need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dame and her Cerberus

Dames come in all shapes and sizes, but they're all trouble. I learned that shit the hard way back in the lower reaches of the Greater Space Elevator. You know the place, sunlight and moonlight is unknown. The only warmth can be found in whiskey and another body. The places below dirt, where men can live and die of old age without seeing another sentient soul. Still got the scars. So I don't take work from dames no more. I don't get as much money. You know how many dames just waltz in showing gam and expect the big, bad, hard-boiled, monologuing -you get the picture- Private Eye to take care of their problem of the week? It's a thrice damned Trope! A stereotype. It happens all the time.

My work name is Sam. Never mind my real name. It's not hard-boiled. It's not the one that signs the checks or pays the rent on the office. My mother called me my real name, but my dad called me 'Champ'. That's where the work name comes from. Sam Champ. As pretty a detective named as this gumshoe could ask for. I'm an ugly six-foot-two with a size fourteen shoe and a super-broad shoulder that's intimidating to tailors and thugs alike. My gun is the police-man's friend, a modded MCP-8-700, with settings for lethal, stun and 'screw everything in a straight line'. Not quite a living weapon like what the Templars have, but dang close.

I make rent by being a bull in one of the loading bays around the elevator. I keep out riff-raff, bouncer style. Stow aways are spaced or shang-haied, as a rule, so it's better to catch someone sneaking on than letting them burn up in the atmosphere. I still get plenty of time for detective work, though. The meteor showers are really going at it this time of year and the big shippings slowed down a bit. What's the use of profit if you spend it all repairing the ship, eh?

The place I call home and business is a two room, one full bathroom suite that's almost made for bachelors like me. One small room is your bed and boudoir. A place to take the ladies and take off the shoes, if you get me. Got some books in there. The old Sam Spade novels and some of the other detective greats. You know, monkey read, monkey do. I'm a simple guy like that.

This world I live in is a giant tower that reaches up about a hundred thousand miles, depending on how you count it. From bedrock to pinnacle. I haven't seen the proper sun in two years. I'm due for a vacation and I hate eating ersatz food and real cabbage. A man needs his hobbies. He could go crazy and start monologuing. Good thing I have an excuse. Being a detective has perks.

My office is in a decent place. On spine 13H, between a rich neighborhood and decently well off neighborhood. Space Elevators bring wealth, and those who are smart or lucky enough to capitalize on it don't do badly. I got this as a favor for clearing the landlord's name for murder. It's only twenty minutes via escalator and elevator to my bull work, and five by walking to the nearest Liquor and Sundries and Liquor Store. Ain't bad at all.

The walls hold a series of pictures with clients I sucessfully helped, on a white background. Paper, it's expensive but so's holograms in the long run. A mantlepiece with a turned off hologram fire holds momentos from all my cases. My desk is faux-wood, not ersatz-wood, thank you very much, and only feels fake, but looks real enough. Behind my ersatz-leather chair is a hologram window I do keep on. When I expect clients, I set it to 'gritty noir' but I keep it at 'Family Friendly park' otherwise. It's all about appearances. A detective who doesn't have a desk or chair or gritty noir window viewing isn't a very good detective at all.

So, during my time off I sit my chair, sit back with a good pulp, good whiskey, and smoke a cigarette. When someone comes in, I toss the book away and get a far-away look in my eye. As if I'm remember dames who died in my arms taking a bullet for me, or far off and foreign wars where I lost my innocence. Really intimidating to the soft and the needy. Gives me an edge in negotiating.

The door creaks, I toss down Sam Spade and get the look. I detect a feminine, but heavy step and put a slight smolder in my eyes. I'm still going to reject her, but I got to do it gentle like, can't get bad feeling from clients.

The dame walks in. She's a trans-human. You can tell. She holds herself ramrod straight, always. Even the proper ladies can't keep the spine a straight line for long. Her eyes are too closed, but not squinting, for normal sight. Her shoes have a slight metallic clang. Besides that, she's got a long coat as the Silicon Soul where like a second skin. The coat melts into some sort of skirt that falls to her ankles. It's elastic, and probably retracts if in combat, if I'm judging it right.  

The real tells are her head piece and her arms. The head piece is a giant tentacle. The hair, gray, is slicked back into it, as if the thing is just moving follicles. It ends in a gripping hand, with fingers for more delicate work. Or, rather, the fingers turn into the grip. There's bangs and hair infront of her ears, giving it a human look. But trying too hard. Her hands are slick, black and carapaced. Green veins pulse in the joints and the metal is shiny. They twitch every time she moves, like the nervous system isn't quite sure how to treat them yet. They are cold and alien. I will not be shaking her hand. The points of her nails glittered.  

"I don't serve dames. I don't serve Silicon Soul. Get out."

She doesn't react. It's getting well known I don't work for women, for reasons I mentioned earlier.

"I need you to find someone, Mr. Champ."

Uh-huh. Probably some punk who knocked her up or stole bail money. Or is a Silicon Soul.

"No. I have it on the sign outside." I do. In bold letters in English-standard and E-deviant. Black on white poly-plastic.

"I am not a Silicon Creature yet. I am trying to prevent it. I need you to find the mad scientist, 'Sawbones' Barbados Slim. He has a cure."

Now that caught my ear. A mysterious person running from an evil to find the one person who could save her? This wasn't a jealous wife or suspicious matron.  This wasn't a blue milk run, oh no. Sounds like the exact sort of adventure I needed. I said, tipping my hat back in just the right way, "Aight. You got my attention...?" Play it cool.

"Sally Broider."

"Sally, well, this will be a difficult one, but it's right up my case. I'll expect my travel costs covered, as well as living costs, besides my retainer. First. give me the details. Take a seat."

Sally sits in one of the low chairs infront of my desk. They're ersatz leather, and decently comfortable. They're lower than the desk so I can look down at them. I didn't realize how tall this girl was until she came close. I wondered if it was her shoes, which were thick heeled, but cut in such a way to give that high heeled look. She moved sinuously. Like a wave. One foot forward, then the other infront of it. Some girls do it on purpose to snare the poor schmuck I aint, but on her, it was liquid. The dress moved up a bit to get out of the way, letting me look at the shapely leg.  

I could see the appeal some had to become a Silicon Soul. Sudden perfection. A foot never out of place... but at the cost of sanity and soul. What a cost. Her skirt had hiked up to above her knees. She crossed her legs. The skirt deliberately kept the length at a modest level. Modest doesn't mean showing nothing, though.

"I was part of the Jaspers Silver incident fifteen years ago. Remember that?"

I did. "A kid was used as an experiment that the Silicon Soul group wanted. Didn't he become a sky pirate on Jupiter?"

She didn't react. "I helped him escape from Barbados, who did the first experiments on him. Turned him into something more than a human, with growth and flaws, but without silicon soul rewriting the soul. Used Nanotechnology, which is why I'm in this predicament. Last year I was captured by the resurrected Silicon Soul Baramia, who remembered I'd defied her during that time. She injected me with a nanotechnology that is slowly but surely turning me into one of them."

"Unless you find Barbados Slim, get whatever he did for Jaspers, and turn yourself back to being human."

"Yes."

This place is terrible, but for those who love adventure, it certainly has its perks. "I'm your man." I pulled out some legers. Taxes are crazy. "Lets talk about pay..."


	2. The Labyrinth of the Elevator

I look damn intimidating in a great coat. My shoulders, already large, gain a good two or three inches. Plus the broad chest arms and my natural confidence combine to an intimidating man. Not that I needed help. I'm working the case to find Barbados Slim. He's called 'Sawbones' I've not mentioned it to anyone yet, but I really hope that it's a pun on 'doctor'. Really hoping. Right now I'm tracking down his entrance to the Greater Space Elevator.

I've sent Sally and her 'thing' to investigate the activities of the local Silicon Soul. The fact that she tracked him to this general Spine is impressive. And also, she's been freaking the heck out of me. She doesn't need food, and only drinks water every other day or so. She doesn't feel pain or cold or anything human. My slick moves mean nothing to her. Man.

So Barbados was on Saturn (how did he get to Saturn, he was DEAD last time we heard of him on earth?!) and got here on one of the Caravan Ships. Now these babies are huge. Each one is several miles long and a thousand feet wide. Millions of tons of good is transported for a thousand companies. Hundreds of crew men and robots man this thing. Stowaways usually can get to earth if they can get on the ship heading there. There's space. And some of them are straight up haunted. But the solar system must have its trade. Else Mars would suffocate, Jupiter would starve and Saturn fall into the limitless hydrogen sea.

Barbados, as far as I'm able to tell, got aboard one of the great Caravan Ships, this one owned by Jack Silvers, and traveled to Earth. He then left as a stowaway, rather than a passenger. Now I've been able to track his exit. They know me as a bull. I don't like them. They don't like me. I cut into their profits, besides the criminal gangs who run illegal immigration routes. Never could let it be said that Sam Champ is corruptible.

Jack Silvers' Caravan Ship ran across bays 'S16H 4124-4160'. Each one is huge. Some, however, aren't used. The first four weren't that day. Every molecule is counted as it comes across. I have to get at the scanners. 4129, nothing, again. 4130 had some workers, but the computer had nothing. Finally, I came up with a suspicious absence.

No one can mess with the total molecular weight that is transferred. It's pretty damn important. Someone tries to smuggle in a Jupiterian Octopuss on the sly, well, that causes problems. Jupiterian Octopuss gets super-violent and unkillable in our atmosphere. It really doesn't like the nitrogen, which is absent at the habitat levels. It toughens up the skin and causes pain. So it starts killing everything thinking that they're causing it pain.

The absence was just as much as a modified man. So far, the information that Sally gave me is checking out. I found a connection to the surveillance system and send my AI, Spadey, to find him and follow him through the cameras. I keep him in a cigarette lighter. I should mention that he's not sentient. That got me some bad attention. "Hey! You punk! What you doing to the terminal!?"

Big tall and ugly spun me around. I had marked him as a troublemaker. He was easily two inches higher, besides being a bit more cro-magnon in the head piece. He had augmented arms, and so picked little old me up with both hands, by the lapels. "Ah! A bull!" He also had eye augmentations. Good work on them, I could barely tell. I got eyes myself. "You came to the wrong place. This is Pleiades territory! You know that!" I did, but I didn't think they'd be so tough about defending their territory from types like me. Bulls were given free reign when investigating. We usually have good reason. We take care of trouble makers, you see.

"Whoa there buddy." You can tell I'm not panicking. This isn't the toughest person to lift me by the lapels. "I'm on the track of a dangerous dude. Someone who'd cause problems for the Pleiades if he was allowed to roam free."

"Well maybe it's in the best interest of the Pleiades to stomp curious flatfoots." He said it. I'd smile but that'd escalate in a direction I'd did not want. "No one's been through here you need to know about. No ones been through at ALL." Spadey chimed that he'd found Barbados, and so I stopped being polite.

"Alright, lesson learned, set me down and I'll scurry away." The eyes squinted. Something scrolled across his eyes and they widened. His fast cocked back. Dang.

"No, you're coming with me." I brought out my friend, MCP, and fired it on the stun setting to his face. To be succint, it hurts. A lot. Doesn't bring down Ugly here, but he lets go of me to clutch at his face. I disconnected Spadey. Ugly got his bearing and swung at me. I dodged the haymaker and went under for a one-two jab to the ribs. He coughed and brought his elbow down. I slipped under his elbow and jumped onto the console for an elbow hammer drop on the crown of his head. That brought him down.

I ran away then. No point in killing a thug of that level. Besides that, the Pleiades would want my head. I like my head.

Spadey fed me directional controls. Barbados is pretty slick, but he didn't mask himself properly, leaving a ghost something like my Spadey can pick up. He did pretty well though, and occasionally I had to make a leap of faith to find the next step. My instincts are pretty sharp, besides that, he seems to be going deeper into the city. This is pretty close to the elevator, and so, densely populated. There were a lot of places to hide. Eventually, I'd have to actually sleuth out his location. Actually do some work for myself, you know?

I came to the end of surveillance camera system. What lay before me was the dark tunnels of the Service Labyrinth.

The service tunnels that support the Space Elevator are without number. I didn't expect anything less. They were necessary, some parts were civilized, others were not. The only place more confusing were the giant support structures and abandoned residences that make up the outer Space Elevator, before the wilds. All the freedom you want, with all the loneliness. Not my style. I make Spadey keep track of my movements. The time stamp shows I'm only a week behind Barbados. People should remember him.

The guy had six arms and a plague docter mask. He was forever hunched over, shuffling with a cane held in one meaty hand. He had a destination in mind. So I walked into the Labyrinth. There were thousands of miles of those corridors. Each one filled with other corridors and conduits. It's never ending. I don't like these places. It's hard to hard-boiled when you hear voices from every side and all of them want to eat your flesh.

That's the bad places. The good places are lightless and peopleless. I turned on my eyes. Now, my eyes are baseline compared to what Ugly's were. Only thing I got is a couple of enhancements, the usual screens. I communicated to Spadey through my head, brain augments. Light amplification is a big one, so is thermal. There are places with no light. This entrance was too well traveled to find footprints in the dust.

In I went. You might ask me, why not figure out his exit? Any number of reasons. The big one is that a man faces his fears. Another is that there could be something in there Sally needs to know about. Another is that I don't have any other leads and if I don't produce results, Sally won't pay me but a quarter of my pay.

Man, I hate having good reasons for doing crazy stuff.

The corridors did have dim lighting, and so my eyes were at the lowest levels. The sounds were much more present. Hiss of steam or other, more dangerous gases. Ticks of small and giant gears. Banging pipes and water slooshing through them. A drip from an unattended leak. A creak of rust. And a voice, horrible voices. Someone speaking so far away, but echoing through the vents for so long you couldn't understand them any more.

The corridor was very long and straight. At the end were branching routes into six corridors. There were other corridors camoflaging the one I came out of too. Any part that wasn't a tunnel to an abyss was a tube or shelf. On one, I found a clue. A small robot waved at me as I passed. The thing had large, child-like eyes. Spadey said that a man had passed by a week ago, but the robot was working at the time and didn't look. Alright, I can work with that. It pointed down a corridor. I thanked it and went down the one suggested. One of those things, gotta hope the little guy was Three Laws compliant.

I follwed it down. My mental map told me I was somewhere in the industrial sector. Perfect. Well, kinda. At least the mental map had an idea. Sometimes it just says 'welp, you're on your own.' Besides that, depending on what Barbados goals are, he could be looking for something to manufacture whatever he did to Jaspers. Emphasis on whatever he did to Jaspers. My eyes kept increasing the light absorbtion. It got darker and darker, soon, I couldn't see the pipes any more.

How it works in here. I'm pretty sure that Barbados isn't weirded out by this place at all. The corridor turned. Then twisted. Then turned upside down. This place is weird, remember. The mental map was still showing me where I was going and close to. There was a nanite manufactory at the end of this corridor. Except it was blocked off. Well. Dang.

The wall was indeed the wall. A decent sonic probing stated that this was a support structure, one of the hardest materials known the man. I couldn't find any potential secret doors or any other branches off. This was a dead end. I, however, wasn't dead. That's a good thing. Time to rewalk my steps.

I heard clicking and started to run. You might be like, 'Sam, you coward! Running from mere clicking.' Yeah but what's making the clicking. A mad Miss Spider? A Micro-volt swarm of insect automatons? Some gear-themed mass murderer? Clicking is always bad. Always. I hit web. Miss. Spider. Normally these spider themed kindergarten teachers would be found in education wings or on private estates for tutoring. They were lessons in 'robots are scary, but you can trust some of them.' I had one for a teacher. They were paired with the more palatable Granny Ladybug. They could both defend their charges.

This one had gone off the reservation into murder-land. Theme park attendance? you. I pulled out my gun. The web was poor quality. It had been in here without recharge for a long time. The clicking of the legs was a give away. There were no more tubes or sounds out there. She was somewhere in the ceiling. There were vents at the top, but none at the dead end. I think I found my route out.

I dodged forward, the Miss Spider fell where I had been. I was thankful every day for my enhanced reflexes. The Miss Spider stopped. Confused that someone dodged. I got a look at it through thermals. Someone had done a number on it. It was missing a few legs and the super cheerful face was cracked, turning super creepier. It was already really creepy. The mouth opened and syringes, knives and nails gushed out. There were still plenty in the gums. The arms held some sort of crowbar.

I drew my gun, set to Kill and fired. I was very tempted to set it to 'screw everything' but I like my arms unbroken. The beam hit her in the mid section and divided her in half. The spider bit collapsed and contracted in a way too damn much like a real spider. The top section flailed like a real human. Too damn real. Who ever first designed her was really messed up. This thing is supposed to take care of children. I took Spadey and pressed it to the head, once it stopped moving. The thing did recognized that Barbados did pass by. He caused the spider to spasm, and left it here, to guard the entrance through the vents. Damn.

Time to go through the vents. And into the Nanite Manufactory.


	3. Visiting the Pleiades

The Nanite manufactory was a wash. I found his exit point into it. I picked up his trail, at least, but beyond that, nothing. He goes to a terminal connected to the security system and everything's snow for an hour. Impossible to track. I tried looking through the exit tapes, but nothing. Snow covers everything and there aren't any tracks to follow. I returned to the office and waited for Sally.

I charged my gun and filled out the 'firing' paper work. Stuns are not required to be recorded. However, kill shots are. They won't bother to look because 1. Mad Miss Spider and 2. In an area populated by no one you'd want to meet in a dark alley is perfectly understandable. They just like to keep track. I could kill a human and they wouldn't care as long as I didn't damage the support structure. System's weird like that, wanting plenty of paperwork, but not really caring. Ah well, kills time.

Sally came in, non-plussed as ever. I doubt she could even BE plussed, you know. She had smudges on her overcoat and a hand that dripped ichor. She sat down. The skirt doing it's dance up and down again as needed. Girl has legs, even with the boots on. Her skin is looking paler than yesterday. I don't much care for tans but that can't be healthy. Looking like cream. One step from being a corpse, or worse.

"I tracked him down to the nanite manufactory on 15G. Lost him thanks to some pretty impressive snow on the videoscreens. Not able to figure out "

She nodded. "I heard the same. I'll have Cerberus visit it later. The Silicon Soul Are still tracking him down. He's know to be an associate of Innocence, one of Tubal Cain's most recent assistants." Tubal Cain was good news and bad news. Good news is, he's a reasonable madman. Bad news, he's got a lot of very violent associates. "However, he hasn't contacted her, that we know of."

"We'll put her on the list of people to talk to. I've also got a clue. The Pleiades worked to get him here. They may know why he's still here." Sally nodded. She was getting ichor on the chair. My danger sense was freaking out about it. But she wasn't freaking out about it. Well, I could always burn the chair later. "Lets visit that gang, then we'll swing to see Tubal Cain." Or, one of his minions, at least.

The Pleiades operate out of various warehouses in the Spine, close to the Elevator itself. This was weird country. The Elevator has an immense effect on its surroundings. The magnetics alone screw up Silicon Soul minds. Even shielded against magnetics, it overwhelms any protections and causes madness. Good protection for humans, and partly the reason why so many people edge up as close as they can to the Elevator. If all else fails, the Elevator will protect against all kinds of mechanical badness.

Heavily modified humans, at least those still with human brains, don't feel the bad effects. They get loopy if they cross a threshold, but only because they want to touch the elevator. The Elevator is tens of thousands of miles of live conduit that lifts gigaton ships up and down earth's atmosphere through application of  LIGHTNING. I don't think that touching it is ever a good idea. I'm fine, besides my eyes and reaction time, I've got metal enhanced bones, that's light, by the way. My favorite cafe has a waitress who tap dances the line between human and cyborg.

This particular one was a known meeting place. A low officer, Eddie, kept books for the local warehouses, and, unofficially, if anyone had business with the Pleiades, you could reach them through him. This one I had bought a few good bottles of whiskey for, so he at least kinda liked me. Remember, I earn bread and butter by disrupting their human trafficking. I happened to get my hands on a few ounces of Ole' Blue. A rare tipple, and one I knew could get some info out of him.

He was a small, bookish man. Weak chin, and a far too clean neckline with a bowtie. The bowtie had little LED lights in it that lit up randomly. I wonder if he thought it cool or it was the one chaos he allowed in his life. Or maybe the pattern is far too long for me to figure out. His office was sparse and business like. The only hint that he had something approaching taste were the whiskey glasses on a side table, and a bottle full of a good brew called 'Adams Fire' an apple-cinnamon whiskey, the type to keep a man warm at night. After a sip of the Ole' Blue, he became much more open to us. 

"Barbados? Yeah, we were the ones to get him in. He traded some technology, I don't know what. I wasn't the one who handled it. Boss Grayson was." Mid-level boss, too important for the usual trafficking. A tough, but smarter than your average thug. He and I had given each other black eyes in the past. We both pretend not to know each other.

"Any way we could get this info out of him?"

He scrunched up his far too large eyes behind his frames. Various readouts flowed past. He sighed and flicked his eyes back and fourth until they went back to whatever they were. He took off the glasses. "You aren't his favorite person, Sam. I like you. You always get the good stuff. Maybe telling me her story will give me motivation."

I was about to say something, when Ugly burst in. Now, I expected to see Ugly. This is his gang and I got the feeling he was trying to earn gangsta cred by trying to beat the tar out of me earlier. Eddie looked at him with dull surprise. Eddie didn't look any other way, lets not kid ourselves. "You! I heard you were here!"

Eddie put a stern look into his eyes. "Leave. This doesn't concern you." Ugly didn't get the message. Not that I'm surprised, he shook off that stun to the face. Thick skull. I'm calling him dumb. 

Ugly ignored him. "You're working for the bulls. I knew it!" Eddie got quiet. Guys like him look all nice and normal, but the calmer the ocean, deeper the currents, when it comes to civilized men. I pulled out my stun gun and shot Ugly in the testicles. He screamed and went down. I grabbed Sally and jumped over Ugly's twitching form. 

Outside was a group of Ugly's buff friends. They were obviously work out bros. Some didn't wear shirts, demonstrating quite shapely abs and pectorals. Being a work out buff myself, you see, I can appreciate a good craftsman. They had just gotten over the shock of seeing Ugly shot in the testicles and were starting to think about revenge. 

With an articulate cry about my mother, Blondie jumped at me. I fired my stun gun at his face, while another, CyberThug, went for Sally. I started firing at the people in front of me, trusting her to handle herself. And she did, very well. CyberThug's five hundred pound body went flying after she ducked a blow and landed a punch to the chest. A little effort, and she tossed the big man away. Her head-tail thing helped, acting as a third arm. Some thug attempted to backstab her and the arm crushed the knife hand in its metal grip. 

Now as for me, things had gotten close. Some fellas, especially the more augmented times, don't mind seeing the whites in an opponent's eyes before opening fire with their gun. I do. See, it's manly and stylish as hell, but in this kinda brawl, where I'm not trying to kill anybody, I might wind up killing somebody. Defeats the purpose. I put the gun away and let fly a fist into a tall chap I'm calling Legs. Legs clutched a broken nose and tried to kick me. I dodged back and then forward after the blow passed. I caught him in the chest and he tripped over a fallen comrade, braining himself on a stack of crates. He'd be alright, he tried to get up and my fist kept him down. 

Now the enemies were looking sparse but now Sally and me were back to back. I've been in tighter positions. I once ripped the spine of a crazed robotic sushi chef in Amaterasu-Tokyo once. Tried to turn me into sashimi I turned him into... ah. dang. I'll come back to this later. Her fists didn't really do much damage, like my meaty cinder blocks, but she could send an opponent flying with a shove or a judo throw. The head-tentacle would flail like a whip, and toss fools by grabbing at their heals, but I noted that she had to plant herself firmly before she could do it.

I gave a one-two to the face of the nearby gangster, Four-arm. He grasped at my wrists with his two extra chrome-arm, and tried to toss me. I lowered my center of gravity, and pulled opposite him. The tentacle behind me smashed Four-arm in the face, dropping him without some nostrils. I called back as the gangsters stepped back. There were too many infront of the various exits. "Got any tricks up your sleeves?"

"Yes." I heard the high-pitched buzz of electronic communication. A second passed and a very large thing crashed down in front of Sally. It had the large body of an ape. It had 3 dog heads. It had a thick, long tail like a snake, with a laser focus crystal at its tip. Each great arm ended with long, bulky fingers, steelworking bot fingers. The tail lashed out and a laser beam began to punch into the chests of the combatants. Sally jumped up onto the shoulders of the cerberus-chimera. I tried to run through a gap, but it turned and grabbed me. I started yelling and beating at the hands, but it jumped into a series of girders and underpinnings. It jumped through a gap I can only assumed it ripped through the steel with the mechanical monster hands. It jumped into the between places of the city.

With Sally balancing on its shoulder, it ducked and weaved between nameless places where no human goes. The between places are ill-lit and horrible. Much of them have no amenities for human habitation. You can see the energies that flash through the Space Elevator. I was getting a tan just by being there. The walls of the human places are proofed against them. I was turned towards it as the Cerberus jumped through a narrow passage, at speeds that would kill me if I clipped a wall. I saw the forces, which dissipate into a haze once you're far enough, going up and down. Colors flowed like a waterfall, while lightning shot up and down like elevators or trains. I saw black spots in places that had colors I could not see, and so my mind blanked it out. I saw, at the side, a giant caravan ship covered in sheet lightning brighter than the sun. It sank slowly down, inch a minute, and the shielded dock workers below, waiting for the immeasurable weight to be gently placed on the pads below, each the size of a sports field, your choice. I turned away, but I could still see it as I closed my eyes.

Soon, it was over, The Cerberus let me down through a maintenance hatch. Sally jumped lightly down after. She caressed the heads of the great robotic beast, one at a time. I'd be touched, but I was already going for the decontamination procedures all maintenance closets have. The roentgens the Elevator puts out are skin curdling close enough, and looking at my hands, well, they were darker, but not sunburned. The door closed and foam poured out on the both of us. It tastes nasty but I let it get everywhere. I peeled off my clothes and scrubbed the anti-radiation poisoning cream everywhere. 

Sally looked amused. I got snappy. "Lather it on, girl, you can claim you want to be human again, but it'll be a short life with cancer!" She shrugged and cast off her over coat. I was busy scrubbing my calves down with the cream, but I still saw a shapely shoulder and pinched waist. Her coats and posture hinted at it. Her skirt had retracted to something more like a bikini, and she then spent a long time applying the lotion to her exposed areas.

When taking off her boots, she revealed her feet were in the middle of transforming into the silicate matter that makes up most of the Silicon Soul cult. While the soles were turning into something that could be shapely, angular and sharp. The tops were still flesh, pale and dead. Wires went up and down into the ankles. There was a strange, hard foam at all the places that flesh and silicon met.

"Enjoying the show?" 

I decided to go cocky. "There's a lot to enjoy."

She laughed and went back to business. I nailed it.  Not sexually. I put my clothes through the dryer. She started to laugh. It was creepy as hell. We got our clothes back on after a wash and walked out back to my office. She made jokes and giggled the entire way. She even grabbed my elbow and hung onto it. 

Eventually, she went back to her usual sullenness, which I considered a pity. 


	4. Tubal Cain and his Amazing Creations

Tubal Cain was a hard man to get a hold of. Besides the Biblical name, and apparently, being too dang important to visit a lowly gumshoe, he had no definite place of residence. He was in charge of the Space Elevator's connection to the ground and the power systems and vent systems and a thousand other systems set down five hundred years ago yet are still in perfect condition today. He was followed around by a group of fifty people, mostly administrators and engineers, who managed the paper work and the dirty work.

He was a mad boy. Mad Scientist. While he was nicer than, say, Barbados Slim, who turned boys into cyborgs on a whim, he was still capable of great feats. I heard he had a giant protecting him. I heard that he can absorb information from holograms into his brain directly. I heard he walks on water. That last one is facetious.

These moved in what I'll call a 'King's court' all over the damn map. I'd discover him in Spine 8 Base but he'd have moved to Spine 17 G before I could get there. There was no pattern, no way to find out what influenced his decision. So I decided to do a couple things. First, I figured out the sequence of maintenance for those aligned with Tubal Cain. Then, I bribed them and got them to give me a certain person's number. This person called another person. I bribed them up and down with favors and alcohol until finally I had a conversation with the man himself. Numbers of course, are relative. I was on videophone.

"Ah, Champ. You did good work for me in the Samarkand Spice case." His voice is strong, but with a tremor like a breeze. He's narrow headed with a tricorn hat and a strong chin. I was very jealous of the hat. "I trust you enjoyed the chili from that sample I gave you?"

That threw me off. The Samarkand case was something dumped on my lap thanks to some inept middle manager. Samarkand spice is grown in the zero-G environment of the asteroid of the same name. It's intense, some kinda cross between Chili Flakes, Paprika and Garlic. Sweet and spicy, but lasting. Really really nice smell. I got a small amount for finding a missing crate of it and that chili. Man.

I, of course, didn't take more than a second. "It was the bee's knees. I always figured it was higher than Mr. Genghis. Never figured it was you high." I got back on track. That sounded terrible. I'm so good at the fisticuffs but those grammatical social skills. "I'm working on a case for one Sally-"

"Transforming into a Silicon Soul? What is her modification?"

"Yessir, a giant tentacle out the back." The video phone was silent. "Barbados Slim is on earth."

There was a spluttering sound. I never knew what a spit take sounded like before. "What! When?" The voice was fairly urgent and not at all as calm as it was previously.

"A week and a day, sir. The Pleiades helped him in. It was on the Silver's Caravan Ship."

"Of course of course. I didn't think he would come back. It was part of the deal, you know. He would leave and never come back. Damn! If Silicon Soul..." He went silent. "I'm sending Innocence to assist. She will have information for you. Did you track him down?"

"I tracked him to the Henderson Nanite factory through the local Labyrinth. Killed a Miss Spider, which is documented. Where should we meet? "

It turns out my favorite terrible deli held some dark secrets in the past. Achilles, grayed and as energetic as he ever was, greeted me with a smile, while the heavily augmented, such that you could not see much flesh beyond her lips and chin, nodded in her familiar way. Her lips were a little pouty and very red. I was kinda into her. Achilles, at my gesture, set too, preparing my usual ersatz-beef sandwich with Faux-cheese. It's spread with something like mustard. It's not mustard. It tastes a lot like it. It hasn't poisoned me.

Achilles, however, did not deliver with his usual joviality. He left the plate and eyed the woman sitting relaxedly upon the chair across from me. Sally was also not at ease. Her head-tail-clamp moved about like a tail and the fingers clenched quickly. The finger-hand circled Innocence as if she, or the hand, was some sort of wild animal, and not to be trusted. Even Dahlia, the cute, heavily modded... yeah... seemed more alert than her usual overstimulated self. Man, being connected to just about everything all the time can't be good for the sanity, or energy levels.

Innocence did not mind. In fact, she seemed to enjoy the attention. She was an interesting creature. She was as unnatural as the rest of the dames in my current life. It's been crazy. I can't even monologue properly. Can you imagine a private eye who can't monologue worth a damn? Anyway. She was dressed casually. Got that gothic lolita style, but sort of slimmed down. She wore a long black frilled slip that bared the shoulders with open fingered sleeves. They seemed to be popular, Dahlia had a pair, though they glowed and pulsed. Her feet were covered in heavy leather boots. Her hair frizzed out into dreadlocks that fell to the small of her back.

Her skin was her most interesting design choice. She was a stitch-girl. Stitch marks and thread covered all the joists between the stretches of flesh that may be a little too small for her. The thread was thick and black. Her skin was pale as death. Some had portions of tattoos that someone else had thought important. Some were a shade from death. Others were pure white. She glowed with a heat and vivaciousness. There was something dangerous about her.

Not the same kinda danger that Sally was all about, but something different. You knew Sally was trouble by the way she looked and stared like death lost a staring contest to her. Innocence just didn't care. She was sitting next to a freak with an arm growing out of her head that could crush bones and throw people. I'm a short giant that can go toe to toe with most freaks and a gun that I've used to punch holes in things that send less hardened bulls screaming and running. I've killed things bigger than her, what I'm saying. I will someday in the future. She didn't care. Her hands clicked at a rhythm that denoted relaxedness rather than stress. Her smile was easy and sharp teeth were under the pale pink lips. Her eyes were a little too bright, like there were other facets to her eyes and too many pupils. Occasionally she would shift positions too fast for my eyes to catch properly. Too many things that come together to say that maybe I was outclassed. 

I was starting to hate Barbados. I don't like things that may be able to take me in an even fight. I especially don't like that potential in such a girl. 

"Wellllll now. What do you want with little 'ole me. I hear Barbados is back in town." She grinned and shined her nails. "I was wondering when some punks were going to come ask me about him. What do you want to know?" Her voice was like dull nails on slate or rough metal. At least it wasn't like sharp nails.

"Uh." I said, a little dumbfounded. "It's that easy?"

"Yep."

Sally was being squintier than normal. I cut in before she could say anything. "So you know what he did to Jaspers? Can you repeat it for her?"

She shook her head. "Nah." Sally's mechanical arm reached up and grasped her up by the neck. "Oh girl, I'm not dependent on air. Or a neck, really. You should really put me down. I'm the reason 'ole Jaspers escaped, though I GUESS you helped. If you really want to tangle, I will. I've downed tougher than you and your boyfriend or thug or whatever."

"Private eye." 

"Yeah yeah." A palm flashed out, and a beam hit Sally in the side. It hit Sally and sent her flying. Innocence went flying too because, you know, she was still being held by the head tentacle thing. They went through the great glass window in the front. I gotta respect a unique defenestration like that. Problem is that it was still my favorite diner.

Achilles was looking on in wonder. Dahlia was clutching her head. They looked at me. I decided not to stay. "Sorry-I'll-put-the-glass-in-my-bill-I'll-see-you-later!" I jumped out the window myself and started to follow the trail of destruction. It wasn't that hard. I could still see some of the laser light flashes. I would love to end one of these talks without a fight. Like I did with Tubal Cain. What a class act. 'hey I have this problem.' 'hey that's weird here's the next lead on the solution.' 'wow thanks guy!' Man. 

I caught up to them. Some bright spark had turned on the sprinklers which hit a piece of phosphorous that's in the Sun Lamps... The ladies were circling each other firing lasers... A police bot was going crazy because SOMEBODY blew its head off... The people were panicking... The shops were burning... Innocence was jumping around laughing... Sally was grunting as she moved about nearly as fast... things were crazy. CRAZY. I pulled out my gun. Set it to stun, and turned up the juice to 'holy cow that's high'.

I started firing at the both of them. It didn't help take them down but it made me feel better. It counts. 

Cerberus jumped down next to me. It turned two out of three head to look at me. The question was obvious. "Get in there! Grab Innocence, I'll take care of Sally!" The thing shrugged and jumped at her. I shot Sally a couple times to get her attention. It wasn't good attention. I started running and yelling that, hey, we shouldn't be fighting. I really didn't want to know what WAS shooting those lasers out of her earlier. She calmed down. "I told your Cerberus to take care of Innocence, do you know where he is?"

"Yeah. What about all this?"

"Blame Silicon Soul?" It wasn't an answer. Sally glared at me. Trying to figure out whether I had cracked wise. It wasn't my intention, but my hindsight was pretty happy with it. Besides, I was hoping for a quick escape, from both prosecution and the fires. Which weren't doing to well. 

She jumped up into the remaining catwalks. I sighed and went up a ladder. Halfway I was picked up by Head-Tentacle. The catwalk swayed dangerously as she had to deal with my 300-350 pound carcass and her own not inconsiderable center of gravity. She was a lot denser than she looked, molecular design wise. She had to be, I guess. Once up, we ran into the upper Labyrinth. Great.

I followed Sally through the corridors. We were going way too fast to remember which way we were going. I'd find my way out eventually, but goodness knows I didn't want to take the long way. You know, the one with all the monsters and escaped madboy experiments or the one with the plain old hobo with a knife. Knives are weirdly deadly in the future. Lasers Sally can shrug off, apparently. I doubt she could shrug off a knife.

Finally, we find one of the abandoned cylinders that is used for things I really hope never to find out about. We're in the guts of the machine. The labyrinths I was in earlier were capillaries compared to this. Occasionally, certain tubes would light up with what I hoped was not super-radiated sperm killing power. In the middle was an island where Cerberus and a sorry looking Innocence were standing. 

I was grabbed and thrown into Cerberus, who caught me in a surprisingly gentle embrace. Sally followed, likely more gracefully than my own screaming form. This is starting to get a little more trouble than it was worth. Sally ignored any protestations about my 'physical safety' and 'living'. 

Innocence went from looking sorry to quite relaxed as we came upon her. "Well, I better answer your questions." Sally grabbed her by the throat and held her over the pit. Her head tentacle latched onto Cerberus, keeping her balanced. "Uh. I'm willing to answer, no need for theatrics!"

"WHERE IS BARBADOS?!" It was a deep and guttural growl, quite unladylike. She apparently didn't like the rough and tumble earlier. 

"I don't know."

"You lie!"

Innocence started looking uncomfortable. "I'm being quite serious. Barbados hasn't contacted me at all." Sally's hands were tearing at her flesh, revealing a disturbingly human, but black metal skeleton.

"Do you know anything about what he might be planning?" 

"He might be trying to spread the nano-evolution to others. I wouldn't be surprised if he himself and some random passersby or some gang members who smuggled him in are being turned into nanobot based post-humans. He's not the sort to half-ass anything."

I stepped in. "Could his nano-bot 'evolution' as you called it, halt or reverse the transformation into a silicon soul?"

Innocence looked at me funny, then at Sally. Lightbulb. "Ah. It would halt it. But Silicon Souls aren't... well..." 

Sally looked despondent. She put Innocence back on the ground. "What changes there are are permanent. The nanobot evolution simply improves what's there. It gives people a more ideal body, while retaining organic growth and the 'soul factor'." 

Cerberus picked up Sally and stuck me under its armpit like a parcel. I'll forever be surprised that so many people can manhandle my giant frame. It's really getting embarrassing. Cerberus jumped off, and then, we were back in the labyrinth. Innocence tried to stop us, but Sally didn't want to hear any more. 


End file.
